SCREEN WONDERS

The best in film and TV to look forward to right now.

Nappily Ever After

A rom-com about hair. Yeah, it doesn’t sound like a lot, but Netflix’s upcoming release (based on Trisha R Thomas’ best-selling novel) delves head-first into themes of race, representation, beauty ideals and relationships. And from the Twitter reactions so far, the internet is so here for it. Violet Jones is a successful advertising executive, who after years of relaxing her hair straight, has an identity crisis, decides to do a Britney and then let it grow out naturally. FYI, lead actress Sanaa Lathan goes for the buzz IRL, which makes it all the more inspiring.

Nappily Ever After will be released on 21 September.

The Sinner

Season 1 of Netflix’s crime series saw Jessica Biel as a young mother who, unprovoked, inexplicably stabs a man to death on the beach in front of her husband and son. As the mystery unfolded, we put on our detective hats, grimaced, and at points had to physically turn away from our screens. And now Netflix is back with season 2, this time focusing on an 11-year-old boy who murders both his parents, with no apparent motive. Gripping stuff.

The Sinner launched in the US on 2 August.

Postcards from London

Harris Dickinson is building himself quite the lead star portfolio. Last year, he fiercely simmered in LGBT drama Beach Rats, and once again, we see him exploring themes of masculinity and sexuality in upcoming Postcards from London. Dickinson stars as Jim, a teenager who travels into the heart of Soho to seek his fortune and finds himself befriending a group of male escorts.

Postcards from London will be released on 23 November.

Lizzie

Indie screen dream alert! A film starring both Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart? I mean, c’mon. And the pair take on the infamous Borden double axe murders – so not one for the faint-hearted. Set in 1892, Sevigny stars as the titular character, who became the prime suspect after her father and step-mother are murdered. Stewart plays housemaid Bridget, who colludes with Lizzie after the pair strike up a secret romance. The trailer looks pretty grisly, so the film is bound to serve up ten-fold.

Lizzie will be released on 16 November.

If Beale Street Could Talk

And he’s back. The last time Barry Jenkins positioned himself behind a camera, it resulted in Oscar-winning feature, Moonlight. The director returns with an adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel of the same name – following a couple whose lives are torn apart after a false rape accusation. If the beautifully cinematic trailer is anything to go by, we can expect the same heartbreaking, slow-building grit as Moonlight.